Category: education

Perhaps you will think this is just a battle of semantics. But, I do not think such battles are futile. Words matter. According to popular theories like Neuro-Linguistic Programming they matter significantly, much more than many of us realize.

But, the appropriate naming of a thing is conditional upon understanding this thing, especially when it is as abstract and ephemeral, as defined and debated, as love is.

Maybe sometime in prehistoric, more intuitive times, this was hardly necessary, but today it is. Since the ‘Positivity movement’ – an orchestrated top-down push by social engineering think-tanks like the Tavistock and Esalen Institutes, Theosophical Society, among many others—love has become a very loaded word in the West. By grand design.

Love is the answer. Love will save the world. Love conquers all. Love the one your with. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Yet love is far too loaded a word to make it the salvation of mankind, let alone the multiverse.

This love-pushing is yet another slight of hand by the power structure, and it seems some of most well-versed and well-intentioned in matters of social programming are still falling for this ruse.

Yes, I will name names, of some of my favorites, and boldly so. James Corbett, Ole Dammegard, Patrick Roddie are among those who have recently rekindled this fog of love. These men are working impressively hard to ameliorate the system, but still insisting love is the answer.

These love lovers come from a very long tradition, Martin Luther King preached constantly of love. From the ancient Greeks to Mary Baker Eddy to today’s New Agers who preach incessantly of agape all march right in step with loads of spiritual and even some secular doctrine to boot.

Crossing every musical genre, every soap opera, through environmental and social movements, through philosophers, preachers, psychiatrists, we have been brainwashed and further confused about what this world really needs.

All we need is love? Not by a long shot!

Here’s what I think: You are all terrifically wrong and embarrassingly so. Please allow me to elaborate.

First and foremost, ‘love’ does not translate well, even among Western languages. ‘Te quiero’ the expression most used in Spanish for ‘I love you’ actually translates better as ‘I want you.’ In French the verb for love is “aimer” translated both as ‘to like’ and ‘to love.’

Love does not translate well through time and space either, it evolves differently over time, place and circumstance. There are 4 kinds of love according to the Bible, 8 according to the ancient Greeks, 7 according to Psychology Today magazine.

Which type is it, I wonder, do we expect to work to solve the world’s ills?

There is the unrequited love of the troubadours, the erotic love equated with infatuation, platonic love, familiar love, and I could go on. And on! A single word with so many variables is a really bad idea for slogans and songs about saving the world. Or a really good one, if you want to remain pathetically ineffective.

Everyone understands love, they insist. We’ve all felt love, they assure us. But that too is a big fat lie. Unfortunately, there are many lonely souls in the world who do not understand love at all and who haven’t any capacity to either receive love, or to give it.

Love is passive, remarkably so. Love is a word over-used to the point of abuse and even contains what most of us today consider malevolent, as in the high form of love according to the ancient Greeks, pederasty, the love between a man and an adolescent boy. We must of course mention the unmentionable as well, in terms of love, that disgusting master of headlines and hatred, pedophilia, the ‘love’ of prepubescent children.

Clearly folks, the answer is not love, not familial love, or romantic love, or sexual love, or cosmic love, or love of man, freedom, god, king or country.

The answer is simply not, in any way, shape, or form, love!

The answer is care.

Care takes out the selfishness and passivity inherent in love. A universal word in the way love never will or can be. It is understood across borders and across generations. Care is independent of love’s baser quality of desire, many times we must care whether we desire it or not.

We care for, we care about, we care to, or not to. Care is a very active word, it embodies and requires action.

Give it a try, just to test my hypothesis. Next time you are inclined to use the word ‘love’ try ‘care’ instead. Instead of saying ‘I love nature’ say “I care about nature.”

Instead of saying “I love that child” say “I care for that child.”

It works especially well with my greatest pet peeve with the word—instead of saying ‘Love your enemy’ try ‘Care about your enemy.’

Does that not feel more right?

Because, I do! I can say that with full honesty and integrity—I care about my enemy. I care what he’s doing so I might prevent it. I care what he thinks, what he says, how he says it, where he goes, in fact, I care about every move he makes, so that I can triumph over him.

There is nothing triumphant about loving your enemy, it’s the equivalent of surrendering to him, because authentic love requires surrender, and everything else is just paying lip-service to love.

Food for thought: Let’s try some songs and preaches and speeches about care for a change.

So I started listening to Alex’s podcast at Skeptiko.com, including many years of past podcasts on the most controversial and fascinating topics largely left behind by mainstream science: near-death experiences, parapsychology, consciousness, and so on; as well as conversations that dare to question some of the oldest assumptions still clinging to modern scientism, in ideas about evolution, race, spirituality and healing/medicine.

I then got hooked on his forum, so it was only natural I buy his book. It also does not disappoint.

Alex’s mantra is not a unique one, it’s one I and many others share: ‘Follow the data, wherever it leads.‘ It has led him, continues to lead him, through some pretty rough terrain.

But in his interviews he comes off as fearless and fresh, in content and sometimes in attitude, as in the way my grandfather used the word with me, as an endearing synonym for wise-guy. He is known for not shying away from the challenging questions, which is completely contradictory to the ungodly number of weenies and yes-men who overwhelm podcasting cyberspace in my experience.

From the book’s introduction a provocative statement sets the tone and the overarching theme, “Science as we know it is an emperor-with-no-clothes-on proposition. It mesmerizes us with flashy trinkets, while failing at its core mission of leading us toward self-discovery.” He then weaves together pieces of various interviews interspersed with commentary, which makes the book not only a concise and interesting narrative to follow, but a key for further perusing the subjects at hand on his forum.

“How could this be?” he challenges early on in the book, “How could otherwise intelligent, competent, seemingly honest people be locked into a mindset that kept them from the kind of open-minded, objective, rational thinking they advocated?” He then proceeds to demonstrate the ‘defend-the-status-quo thinking’ that has become deeply ingrained in the scientific establishment.

Medium communication is one such taboo-type topic covered in the book. Alex surmises three main reasons why most scientists just won’t go there.

They are willfully ignorant of the research that exists;

They never personally investigated the topic themselves; and

They can’t accept any anomalies that challenge their carefully constructed mind-equals-brain paradigm.

But, could science be at a tipping point? Included in the book are portions of interviews from many leading researchers in what most still consider pseudoscience. Other interviews are with insiders doing cutting-edge research against-the-current, like Dr. Jeffrey Long, a radiation oncologist and near-death experience (NDE) researcher with a best-selling book, Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences.

The data tells us, says Dr. Long, “. . . what you see in the life changes of near-death experiencers is markedly consistent. In other words, it’s not just that they have life changes; it’s the consistency of those life changes. The substantial majority, if not overwhelming majority, of near-death experiencers believe that there’s an afterlife. They believe that there’s a God. They no longer fear death. They’re less materialistic. They value loving relationships more. The list goes on and on. This has been consistently observed not only in our study but in scores of prior scholarly studies of this phenomenon over 30 years.”

Alex’s interviews often include elements of more subtle and sensitive inquiry, which I find remarkably over-looked by most others–fundamental questions of ethics, the destructive powers of group-think, authentic vs. contrived compassion, leadership, hypocrisy and responsibility–those deeper aspects of a more spiritual nature.

I’d be willing to bet more folks have had experiences of inexplicable, or otherwise anomalous events than have not. These experiences range from things like the placebo effect in healing, paranormal-feeling synchronicities, even prophetic dreams or unusually strong connections with certain people or animals or places. All kinds of folks practice astrology, and Tarot, channeling, meditation, herbal healing, which mainstream science mostly dismisses as quackery.

Science today dismisses anything and everything it cannot directly observe. So we the non-experts, the general public, are left with gaping black holes in our knowledge, that morphs into mythology and fantasy-based reality, in all the corners where science fears to tread. Few of us really believe we are biological robots in a meaningless universe, yet that is where materialistic science seems to be permanently stuck.

The data eventually led Alex to the place where I found him, conspiracy theories. He had some predictable push back from some of his regular audience and it’s possible his forum has still not completely recovered the losses. To me, that speaks volumes. “Following the data wherever it leads” is not just lip service to him, he sticks to his guns; this is a man of principles.

He even dares to question a southern hot-button topic of the highest order–the theory of evolution–not so much the science aspect behind the theory, but the social engineering aspect of it, the conspiracy angle of it, my preferred angle.

After three interviews, Michael Flannery, Associate Director for Historical Collections at the University of Alabama and expert on Darwin and the theory’s co-discoverer Alfred Russel Wallace; evolution enthusiast Dr. Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago; and Roy Davies, a former BBC filmmaker and journalist, Alex asks a few more of his compelling questions. “Do we really need to elevate this tiny bit of history to the untouchable status it has among many scientists and committed atheists? Does it really answer our deepest questions about who we are and where we came from? Or is the theory of evolution protected so fiercely because it’s a vehicle for propping up our absurd science-as-we-know-it, mind-equals-brain paradigm.”

To me being just a layman following the data, the answers look self-evident.

Alex concludes with a touching personal observation that parallels my own experiences, which demonstrates why I, and many others, believe conspiracy work is in fact, spiritual work.

“The Skeptiko interviews I’ve compiled have changed me. They’ve turned my world upside down more than once. But the knowledge I’ve gained has made me a better husband, father, and friend. I’ve discovered and re-discovered myself again and again and, in the process, I’ve gained a deeper connection with those I love and care about. Knowledge is power, and sharing knowledge, like so many of my guests on Skeptiko have done, is the ultimate gift one person can offer another.”

I have a hard-ball question of my own for Alex, but I’ll save it for a future date. 😉

Spend any time at all sharing information on the Internet, or commenting on Youtube posts, or debating topics on a forum and you will find hostile folks.

Maybe some of them might rightly be called ‘haters’ but the truth of the matter is we have so long been trained in this culture to be nice and tolerant and bite our tongues and turn the other cheek and what we’ve created with this is not more niceness but more inability as individuals and groups to handle criticism, even valid criticism.

I heard this old adage plenty of times growing up: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Nonsense!

I am guilty myself of becoming too annoyed and heated at times dealing with morons, shills and assholes. I often have to take a step back and remind myself, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”

Now is the time every one of us could be starting a revolution from our beds. We are safe from the sticks and stones and can become completely resilient to the name-calling.

The straw that broke this camel’s back? I left my teaching career because the education system has become so pathetic that we were ordered to no longer correct student grammar in my beginning Spanish and French university courses, because to be corrected ‘hurts students’ feelings’. It was a new department-wide policy supposedly deemed necessary due to falling enrollment numbers.

If you are a student whose feelings get hurt because you are learning something new and need to be corrected, you should not be at university, you should go back to kindergarten.

Time to grow up and speak up, America! Let’s bring this kakistocracy down, one keyboard warrior at a time.

Internet Enemy #1: The pooh-slinging shills. Learn their tactics, stand up to them, become a fearless keyboard warrior! 🙂

There is no greater luxury than time. When we give our time we are giving our energy, our single most precious resource as individuals. I wish I’d understood that better far sooner in life.

I can’t turn back the clock to make up for that, but I can make certain to never sell my time so cheaply again. I see now how I, and a good many more, confused the game with reality. It would also seem, in terms of numbers and the obvious direction culture is heading, that this confusion is getting far worse.

I grew up in a fantasy-based reality, where, as I said in part 1, the artificial, man-made construct of time had long since replaced not only my own internal clock, but the clock of nature as well. I spent an enormous amount of time at school, much of that which I now consider wasted. I spent a good deal of my youth watching television and reading fiction. I spent a fair amount of time in young adulthood experimenting with altered states of consciousness, exploring a bit of the world and a bit of my own mind. That was actually loads of fun, which I cannot regret anymore than I could have continued.

Now in middle age I have a new goal and agenda centered on my own re-education. This to me is reclaiming time and I do it not out of loneliness or boredom, nor to indoctrinate others, nor in the aim of becoming an authority figure, nor even to make money—all of which I have been repeatedly accused and none of which mean anything to me in these pursuits. I do it because it needs to be done, according to the small, still voice of Self.

That I should have the occasion now to do this necessary work fills me with gratitude and even awe. As an unexpected rainbow might stop one in her tracks, or make her hurry back for the camera, I gaze with gratitude at the long empty hours in front of me each morning, ready and waiting to be filled with my heart’s greatest longings: extended walks in the woods with the dogs; spoiling the puppies as much as I dare; answering the phone, or not answering it; writing a blog post, or not; puttering in the garden; cooking something delicious, even if just for me and the critters.

Beyond nature as my companion, I also have many other teachers, ironically the majority of them brought to me by another fantasy-based reality: cyberspace.

From the viewpoint of some friends still enthralled with the fantasy-based reality matrix in which they reside, they find this disturbing. You will be alone on Thanksgiving? And Christmas? And you welcome this? Some even try to label this ‘depression’ or a ‘crisis’ of mid-life. What about family, friends, shopping?! I try to assure them: “No, really, I care not a hoot for the Black Friday specials, or Christmas gifts.” And as for friends and family, they know exactly where to find me.

This Thanksgiving I wish to express my deepest gratitude to he who is making this luxury of time possible, that is Hubby, whose absence and employment are both a gift and a curse. Not a day goes by where I do not marvel at the journey we’ve made together and where it has brought us. I could’ve never predicted it nor imagine how suited to me it could become.

Me, a cheese-maker? Didn’t see that comin’!

I also want to show my very sincere gratitude to those out in the cyber-world making my re-education easier, more accessible, more entertaining and thought-provoking than it otherwise could have been. These individuals have gone to such incredible lengths to offer their great contributions to knowledge and humanity, not only against the current paradigm, but as serious matters of conscience, and using the most innovative gifts of modern technology available to them. For this modeling I am unreservedly impressed and inspired.

Dane Wigington at Geoengineering Watch: a powerful and tireless voice against geoengineering and for a more responsible relationship by humans with our environment. I would be hard-pressed to find a more consistent and honorable advocate for nature and sanity.

Alex Tsakaris at Skeptico, where have you been all my life?! I just found his site last month. And after the very long series of posts where I was attempting to better understand the nature and frauds of science, I now finally have a solid guide through the territory that most inspires me, expressed in his tagline: “intelligent discussion on science and spirituality.” I’m now a happy member on his forum site after only one previous miserably failed attempt in the world of forums.

Still a favorite after all these years, thank you James! A gifted writer who uses his many talents in devotion to truth–my favorite shows being those in which he demonstrate his extraordinary wit and creativity.

I have recently praised the work of Michael Tsarion and David Whitehead at Unslaved.com, but I would be remiss not to mention them again now. Tsarion gets a baffling amount of criticism, but I’ve found his work, especially on the Tarot, to be invaluable. Now that he has teamed with Whitehead he is grounding into the topics I find most necessary today–personally, politically, intellectually, spiritually, physically. There is an uncanny synthesis in their shows together, maybe based in the inter-generational aspect of it, and that they so often draw from history yet underscore its continued relevance, but definitely in the shared vision that what’s required to move forward and make a better world has been right under our noses and at our fingertips all along. I have learned an enormous amount from them about the nature of evil and the capacities required to usurp it. Thank you, gentlemen, oh how the world needs you now!

Another one I must thank is Crrow777. While definitely not for the faint of heart, they are very much on the cutting edge and I can’t help but to respect that. They are now battling censorship and taking it on like true spiritual warriors. For those ready for a heavy dose of deconstruction, take a deep dive into their waters!

Jon Rappaport (nomorefakenews) I re-blog fairly regularly as he has my great respect as another man of honor with an inspiring dedication to, and passion for, truth. A veteran journalist, one could spend considerable time learning from his vast expanse of past and present work.

Finally, I want to take a deep bow to the greatest teacher by far that I’ve ever known, and will ever know, and which has taken me far too long to find: Nature.

It is in you my reality is centered and my energy devoted for the rest of my luxurious, reclaimed time in your exquisite home.

I wish I could say I was not guilty of it. I watched on two different days last week as a coyote trotted off contentedly first with a duck, then a chicken. The latter time I was outside, with our very large Dane-Mastiff guarding, reading on the deck as the coyote pranced by 200 feet from us, without any chicken ever making a sound to alert our attention.

I did shoot at it, far too late, but I was so slow and stunned I hardly had a chance. I asked on social media whether, had they been faster than me, if they would have choosen to shoot the thieving coyote with their cameras or their guns. Most chose cameras, which demonstrates a double-bind, I believe.

We have lost sight of the predator/prey relationship. In fact, when we look closely into New Age groups and the major push in education currently, the prey has been deluded into believing they can transform the predator into something ‘better’ or “safer” or at least less scary.

The prey goes into school and later even therapy so as to come out better adapted at the game and to his role as prey. The predators understand perfectly this relationship can be best described by the old parable of ‘the frog and the scorpion.’ Since at least Biblical times, it has always been the same game. The predator/prey relationship is easily paralleled to our more civilized equivalent of Master/slave, which can be extended further to our current neo-serf system of Parent/child and State/citizen.

I fancy myself aware, self-reliant, pro-active, resourceful. Yet, in my ‘truth quest,’ which a great many of us have been on for many years now, I’ve demonstrated my talent at pointing fingers, shifting responsibility, projecting, and most grievous and destructive of all, further nurturing an identification complex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identification_%28psychology%29

An identification complex is plaguing seemingly all of society right now so I have plenty of company. We are all pointing our fingers at the 1%, or in the case of “truthers” or “conspiracy theorists” the .001%, as the core problem with the world. We criticize from one side of our mouths and go along with the other. We go along in hundreds of different ways every day. We fall for their fashion and entertainment, we sit in their schools and on their boards and in their governments. On the surface there seems to be little other choice. When someone opens their eyes wide enough to see this is the same master/slave relationship indoctrinated and institutionalized at ever level of the system that has existed since the beginning of history, we are then met with the next inconvenient truth: We are only looking at the gameboard, we are not understanding the game.

We the slaves both despise and envy the master, and the master knows this and uses it against us. Obedience is the price and the master sets the terms. Our role is to remain passive and uncomplaining against the unspoken contract. When the noose tightens, some slaves become restless and resentful, while others adapt by learning to breathe more shallowly. Livestock breeders use identical methods. This is how the system perpetuates and exacerbates to such an imbalance that an excess of predators disrupt the natural order until collapse is inevitable.

Of course the game is rigged! And if you had your way, it would be rigged in your favor. Your preference might be: I want it to be fair and safe for everyone, for there to be no predators or prey, nomasters or slaves, and many might support you, to the point they’d be willing to become the predators in order to preserve your collective safe-space.

What we see politically we are also allowing in our personal and professional lives. We feel the boot, there are fewer in denial everyday. We know we are being surveilled and minimized and made obsolete. We know we are victims and we react in one of the many ways they know we will, as prey always will: Fight, Flight, Fawn, or Freeze. If one can find another courageous enough to rebel, he is also lost eventually, because to rebel is to remain still inside the game. They have plenty of room for rebellion, they count on it, they thrive on it.

“I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.” Jay Gould

Obedience is the prey’s cost in the master/slave, State/citizen relationship, making the passive society become increasingly easy prey; little more than a flock of smiling depressives. These easiest of prey develop a quintessential need for their one-season world, for un-natural order, until passivity replaces fear and we all become the woman watching the coyote trot by with one of her ducks, too slow and maladapted and untrained to stop him.

When one is lucky enough to find another who has the courage to change the game, or at least give it a go, one has met the Fool soon to replace the Father. The game changes when we ourselves change, it’s an inside-out process, not an outside-in. We choose en masse, to not be prey or predator. We choose to have no rulers. We choose Autonomy, Sovereignty and Self-government.

The ones who understand you must stop the predator or soon all your poultry will perish are the ones rebelling, which the masters then flaunt in front of the more passive prey to get them focused toward each other. The fawns point fingers at the fights, the freezes blame the flights, and around and around we go.

Where will we stop? Does somebody know?

When the most passive meets the predator enface they realize their only hope is one they’ve been trying to avoid all along. Because the most unpleasant truth of the human condition from the mindset of the frog is that not every frog has to become aware of the nature of the scorpion, they just have to become aware faster than the last frog.

Here’s some research links I know could really benefit some of my fellow frogs.

For your personal life and relationships: Ollie Mathews, an ingenious entrepreneur helping victims of narcissistic abuse by reading their often painful letters on Youtube. Understanding this co-dependent dysfunctional relationship is crucial to understanding how it’s playing out in the Big Game:

This is not a positive, solutions-oriented post. Trigger warning. Some readers are likely to become offended. Continue reading at the peril of feeling negative and/or critical. Feelings of hopelessness may also arise. More sensitive readers may feel overcome with a sense of dread or an onset of depression. This post is not recommended for those who are taking prescription medications, or are self-medicating, have children or are planning to have children. In fact, no one should read this post.

Publicly shun dissenters as ‘haters’ and ‘conspiracy theorists’. Eliminate them from mainstream discourse. Preach love and unity at every opportunity. We are all one. One big fake-happy family under oligarchical domination renamed democracy.

Don’t look up!

Current enforcement shaped through the corporate model. Brief description follows.

“. . .the ideology of modern corporate management, which uses therapeutic forms of social control and calls for group harmony to impose rigid conformity.

This magical thinking is largely responsible for our economic collapse, since any Cassandra who saw it coming was dismissed as “negative.” This childish belief discredits legitimate concerns and anxieties. It exacerbates despair and passivity. It fosters a state of self-delusion. And it has perverted the way we think about the nation and ourselves.

The corporations enforce a relentless optimism that curtails honest appraisal of reality and preserves hierarchical forms of organization under the guise of “participation.” Corporate culture provides, as Christopher Lasch pointed out, a society dominated by corporate elites with an anti-elitist ideology.

Positive psychology, which claims to be able to engineer happiness and provides the psychological tools for enforcing corporate conformity, is to the corporate state what eugenics was to the Nazis.”

I’ve loved cooking for as long as I remember. As a young girl that meant macaroni and cheese or Hamburger Helper from a box. Being from the mid-west casseroles were of course an early specialty. But we did not eat healthy. We were like most suburb-dwellers since the rise of supermarkets and fast food. Canned vegetables, TV dinners, bologna sandwiches, I’m sure you get the picture.

My palate and preferences have evolved significantly over the years, a good deal of it thanks to Handy Hubby, who is a fabulous cook. What we like to cook differs, but usually compliments one another, and our time cooking together is fun and bonding, usually. That is, as long as he doesn’t watch me chop anything.

Our preferences took a big leap when we started growing much of our own food. This has been a huge and continuing learning curve, but it excites me to learn new things and I find growing and harvesting our own food immensely satisfying.

For newcomers now it’s becoming much easier with homesteading-type courses popping up all over, even online. City and country folk are really getting organized around important traditional food and lifestyle concerns, like raw milk, GMOs, pesticides, water quality and on and on. I find it thrilling it’s getting so popular! In the beginning friends and family thought we were nutcases moving out here and experimenting with this lifestyle and no one knew what “homesteading” meant in the way that’s now becoming quite a movement. Much more on all of this in future posts!

For now I just wanted to share for those just starting out on the journey to better health one course I just heard about through The Weston A Price Foundation, an amazing resource for the traditional foods resurgence. My favorite cookbook is written by their President, Sally Fallon, called Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. It’s got it all: fermenting, cultured dairy, game and organ meats, sauces, condiments and very interesting culinary history.

The course sounds like it would be a great place to start for anyone just getting interested, and it’s free!